Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/12

iv revised and amended in the present edition, and some others added.

While I am offering advice with respect to the manner of conducting domestic affairs, I cannot refrain from expressing my regret that so large a proportion of the young ladies of England are sadly deficient in that information, and in those practices of economy which are the most essentially necessary to their welfare as persons of influence and authority in a house. I am by no means singular in lamenting that the advantages of a knowledge of housekeeping seem to be so entirely lost sight of by those who have the responsibility of bringing up either their own or other people's daughters; and I find it frequently the subject of remark that the ladies of the present day have become incapable of being so skilful in the discharge of their domestic duties as the ladies of a former period were, in proportion as they have become more cultivated and more accomplished. But is it so? Are there now a greater proportion of women whose minds are really cultivated than there were formerly? Is there not rather a greater pretence of learning with less of it in reality? It is erroneous to suppose that persons of real learning look upon the minor duties of life with contempt, because of their learning; for, though learning does not, perhaps, give sense, it surely does not destroy it, and there is not only a want of sense, but a positive folly, in that affectation of refinement, and that assumption of superiority, which has led to the result now complained of. But the system of education which has prevailed of late years is certainly in fault; a system which assigns the same species of learning, indiscriminately, to young persons of every rank and degree, without distinction even as to ability. Such a method of bringing up has unavoidably been productive of very injurious effects; for, while it withdraws the daughters of farmers and tradespeople, and others, during a great part of their youth, from the practice of those homely arts which belong to their